Containers such as cardboard cartons are generally used to package and ship a plurality of individually wrapped or packaged articles such as consumer products. It would be convenient and desirable for these containers to have a readily openable or removable panel that would allow access to the contents of a container. There is also a need in the packaging art to economize the cost of such containers by using in their construction the smallest amount of materials possible, consistent with the volume and strength required for the container.
One type of container known in the art is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,946,042 issued Aug. 7, 1992 to Ferreri et al. Ferreri et al. disclose a shipping and display carton having panel top flaps divided into two sections. The panel top flaps meet in the center of the top of the package, thus forgoing any opportunity any economize with respect to the amount of the material used to form the carton. Furthermore, Ferreri et al. require requires a separate operation to cut out a notch in the top flaps for access to the contents of their carton.
Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,872 issued Aug. 19, 1997 to Leftwich et al., which patent is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a shipping/display container. This shipping/display container has a tray portion and a removable cover portion. Again, the cover portion entirely encloses the contents of the container and does not provide for any economization in the cost of its materials. Further, Leftwich et al. also require a separate operation to add the cover and then to add the lines of weakness to the cover on their carton.
Yet another type of carton is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,126 issued Aug. 12, 1975 to Palmer , which patent is incorporated herein by reference. Palmer discloses a carton having a panel formed with a pair of lines of weakness extending at a 45.degree. inclination between fold lines. However, Palmer fails to teach multi-panel access to the contents of his display carton and further, again, fails to teach a way to minimize the amount of materials used in making the carton. A similar example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,021 issued Apr. 30, 1991 to Coltrane et al. Coltrane et al. disclose a carton having lines of separation at the corners defining one side panel. Again, Coltrane et al. fail to disclose lines of weakness which provide for multi-panel access to the carton and fail to economize o n materials as is known in the art.
Material economization has been separately practiced in the container or carton art through the use of flap gaps. A flap gap is the space left between opposite flaps on a common panel, which flaps are folded towards each other. The distal ends of the oppositely folded flaps do not meet, allowing a space in which the contents of the container can be seen between the distal ends of the flaps. Such a space between the distal ends of the flaps is known as a flap gap. Such flap gap economization has been practiced on the commercially successful BOUNTY.TM. paper towel shipping containers. However, such containers have not allowed for specific and predetermined access to the container contents by consumers or by personnel who remove the container contents for stocking at the point of purchase.
Given the foregoing, there exists a continuing need in the art to provide a shipping container which allows for easy and convenient multi-panel access, optionally multi-panel access at the juncture of adjacent panels, as well as economization of materials. Further, it would be desirable to have multi-panel access which has the flexibility to allow access to anywhere from two to five panels of a generally parallelepipedly shaped container. Such a need is satisfied by the containers and carton blanks of the present invention.